


Life Line

by Canaan



Category: White Collar
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-10
Updated: 2011-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:50:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canaan/pseuds/Canaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal finds himself leading a double life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life Line

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Yamx as a gift for Fandom Stocking 2010 on LJ. My first foray into _White Collar _fandom, and much earlier than I expected. Set during "Home Invasion."__

Neal has been a stockbroker, a salesman, and a security consultant. He's been a chauffeur, a high roller, a concierge, a fundraiser, a curator, a playboy, an accountant, a professor, an art restorer, and an entrepreneur. He's worked hard at being the ultimate chameleon, becoming exactly who people need to see (or not see), but he's never lost sight of who he is.

So why is there an FBI agent on his couch, snoring like a buzzsaw and making it impossible to sleep?

He'd meant it when he offered to let Peter stay here--that's the thing he doesn't understand. He hadn't thought about how it would cramp his style. Hadn't thought about the complications. Hadn't thought about things like Peter being Peter (and snoring). He'd just . . . seen a friend about to make a stupid mistake, and wanted to give him a place to land safely.

What kind of grifter makes _friends_ with the FBI? Not the kind of friends you use, but the kind of friends you let sleep on your couch?

It's like he's living a double life, and he doesn't know how it happened. He's still himself, still Neal Caffrey. He's one of the best in the game, and he likes for people to know it. He loves the reputation, loves that every new con is bigger than the last, loves that he can run rings around law enforcement (when it isn't sleeping on his sofa). But suddenly, there's this other guy: the one who has lunch with Jones and Cruz, who reads up on law so he can follow it (not just so he's sure he can't be charged), and who's really genuinely pleased when Peter tells him did a good job. And _he's Neal Caffrey too_.

Talk about a split personality.

Neal can do it, though. It's like juggling elephants while walking on a high wire: one misstep and he's done, but that's true of so many things in his life and it's never stopped him before. He just needs to stop thinking about it, which maybe he could do if Peter would stop snoring so he could get some sleep . . .

They don't trust him, he knows. Not Alex, because Peter's a Fed. Not Peter, or he wouldn't constantly be checking up on him. Not Elizabeth, probably, because he's run her husband ragged in the past and he can't promise he won't do it again in the future.

He wonders how she puts up with the snoring. "Peter," he says loudly, "roll over." A brief spate of muttering interrupts the sonorous opus, followed by the next movement, which at least turns out to be a lower drone.

Perfect. In the middle of an identity crisis, he's reduced to trying to think like Peter's wife in order to get any sleep.

Who the hell is Neal Caffrey? It shouldn't be that hard a question, and it's not one he'd be caught dead asking anywhere outside his head.

Peter might answer him.


End file.
